The Roberts Files: some of the recently released information about John G. Roberts.

Tim Horrigan; August 2005

 The Democratic National Committee is leading a drive to have an additional 80,000 pages of files released, dating from Judge Roberts' time as an aide to Bush I (in the Office of the Solicitor General.) Only files from the Reagan Administration have been released thus far. Tom McMahon, the DNC's Executive Director, sent out an email to DNC contributors on August 25 which raises some important issues:

More than 80,000 people signed on to our Freedom of Information request for all the work done by Supreme Court nominee John Roberts on 16 crucial cases during his tenure in the first Bush administration's Office of the Solicitor General. This week we delivered your signatures -- tens of thousands of them -- as part of our request.

So what will we learn if the Bush stonewall ends and the Department of Justice fulfills our FOIA request? We'll know what John Roberts actually thought about the vital Constitutional issues at stake in each of the 16 cases. We'll get his unvarnished opinion, expressed in the memos he wrote to the people he worked with every day.

Once we know what he thought of these issues, we'll know more about the kind of Supreme Court Justice he will make. Will John Roberts fight to protect our most fundamental freedoms? Or will he advocate a narrow, partisan interpretation of the Constitution that strips Americans of our rights or erodes the progress we have made?

Just looking at the public record, you can discern a pattern of hostility to civil rights. Here are a few of the cases we requested information on:

Metro Broadcasting v FCC (1990)
Roberts argued against letting the FCC use affirmative action in distributing broadcast licenses. This case was a rare instance of the Solicitor General stepping in to block an action of the federal government to increase opportunity.
Board of Education of Oklahoma City v Dowell (1991)
In a brief signed by John Roberts, the Solicitor General's office argued against a court ruling that ordered a school district to prevent racial segregation. Roberts's brief opposed the efforts of African American families to argue that Oklahoma schools would become segregated again.
Freeman v Pitts (1992)
Roberts signed a brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn a lower-court decision that required a Georgia school district to ensure its schools were fully desegregated.
Lee v Weisman (1992)
Roberts filed a Supreme Court brief arguing that a school district should be permitted to invite clergy to lead public prayers at a graduation ceremony.
Voinovich v Quilter (1993)
Roberts co-authored a brief supporting an Ohio redistricting plan that minority voters said violated the Voting Rights Act by concentrating minority voters in a small number of districts.

What little we know about John Roberts's record on civil rights is troubling — at the very least. In his work in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, he demonstrated a consistent hostility to efforts to ensure equal opportunity and justice as guaranteed to every American under our Constitution. But there's more that we just don't know. That's why we need the full story.

The Bush Administration now has less than 20 days to respond to our FOIA request. We'll continue to update you as we learn more, and tell you about some of the other important issues covered in the cases we requested.

Thank you for your support,
Tom McMahon
Executive Director

Here is a guide to some of the files released regarding John Roberts' work as an aide to President Reagan, The files are all distributed in PDF format, although the PDF documents consist strictly of images of (usually bad) photocopies. Most of this material was not written by Roberts personally: the majority of it is either documents which he had to review, or newspaper and magazine clippings. He was on the same distribution lists as a number of colorful Reagan-era characters, including John Poindexter, Angela “Bay” Buchanan, Donald Regan and Bill Casey. He also frequently interacted with another ambitious young attorney named Ken Starr.

The Reagan Presidential Library released over 100 folders dating from 1982-1986. Most of the files were released on August 15th, though a few files turned up at the end of the month. (The later releases seem to consist mostly of files which had to be redacted because of confidentiality concerns and/or because Roberts was politely responding to cranks who don't need to be embarrassed two decades or more after the fact.) The Department of Justice released several more boxes of files, dating from 1981-1983. The Bush II White House is reputed to have files which it is refusing to release.

One of the Reagan Library files went missing. It dealt with affirmative action. Two Bush II aides did look at it before it vanished, according to an August 17 Washington Post article.

Reagan Library Files:

ROBERTS OPENINGS 08/29-31/2005



ROBERTS OPENING 08/15/2005

The following material in Roberts, John G. Files 1982-1986 – REAGAN LIBRARY COLLECTIONS was opened August 15, 2005 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA and is available through the links below in the PDF format.  Adobe’s Acrobat PDF Reader is available as a free download. 

For more information regarding the August 15, 2005 opening please read the statement by the Archivist of the United States.



The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. Privacy statement. Accessibility statement.

Files Released by National Archives

Records Pertaining to John G. Roberts, Jr.

Record Group 60: Department of Justice


Records Released on September 2, 2005

Records Released on August 29, 2005

Records Released on August 11, 2005



Records Released on August 2, 2005



Records Released on July 26, 2005

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Read The Forgotten Liars, the novel by Timothy Horrigan